Top Ten Live Action Movies with the Worst Special Effects
Keep in mind these movies MAINLY have good SFX, however, not all effects are perfect in these. Also remember, I love over 50% of the films on this list, but they still have undeniably at least ONE bad effect.
The Amazing Bulk is a spoof of The Incredible Hulk consisting of CGI largely taken from online libraries of graphical models and animations... and they still actually look GOOD unlike the jittery and sometimes terrifying animation of the Bulk itself, at least when he is not a live action indigo naked man or a pair of Incredible Hulk robot hand toys painted violet. The live action scenes are WORSE: they are only filmed against a green screen, so any scene involving movement either has the actors jog in place or has them stand still as the fake backgrounds scroll and stop around them. Watch the ultimate chase scene for proof.
As one of the few fans of this movies, I still gotta say Batman & Robin has a number of terrible effects, notably the wobbling rubber icicles on the decoy car's entrance. And the wire work is atrocious. Every time a character is pulled or flies through the air it looks desperately unconvincing. When Robin is being pulled underwater by Ivy's saplings in the Turkish bath, he surfaces for air and gets pulled under again. It is obvious the film is being rewound. Then when he finally gets free, we see the shot that gets rewound is the same shot used when he escapes. While it seems throughout the movies that they are showing Batman's eyeballs in shadow, it is obvious in many evenly lit scenes that Batman is wearing black makeup around his eyeballs. During the final conversation between Batman and Mr. Freeze, the 'ends' of the makeup, and George's ordinary skin can be seen.
Again, I actually love this movie, but the introduction of CGI to Indiana Jones in Crystal Skull has imperfect effects. Notably, the vehicle chase in the rain forest has really dodgy green screening. And that is saying nothing of Mutt Williams' Tarzan sequence. Sadly, everything is worse with monkeys. Actually, let me extend it to every animal in the film, because there are the worst ground squirrels ever committed to film in this. And there have been a lo.
Despite this being my favorite Harry Potter film with a ton of awesome special effects, at the end when Voldemort steals the Elder Wand, the white marble catacomb is super obviously made of foam bricks. Worse, no attempt at other effects were made to disguise this, so when the foam bricks shift aside, not only are they visually obvious foam bricks, the audience can HEAR...foam bricks falling over.
Despite the series' otherwise BEWILDERINGLY GOOD animation, the battle at the start of pits Jack against Will, and Will throws a blade and it embeds itself at the ingress. Take another look at the broadsword. It is obviously plastic.
Despite otherwise awesome special effects, Return of the King has a little shaky CG Legolas during the famous elephant climb scene, although everyone is willing to forgive it because of how outstanding that scene is. The start of the movie also has a painful CG Hobbit falling into the stream. The entire climactic sequence on Mount Doom is somewhat dubious as well, whenever the scene requires the appearance of molten rock... however, it is understandable, as the post production crew were working three days in a desperate attempt to finish those scenes in time for the film's premiere. I shouldn't have put this on the list LMAO.
I love this film, and this kerfuffle is justly mild, but when Obadiah runs at Pepper after discovering her underground, he is extremely clearly not moving.
70 years after the events of the first film, we see Peggy Carter. She is artificially aged with computer effects rather than makeup which isn't super convincing but the other effects more than make up for it.
The effects are fantastic! And this is only on the list for a small detail? Give me a break!
There is a small moment of when the light from Stark's arc reactor is not shining through his shirt in many shots during the scene after the agent is killed.
Haven't seen, can't judge
Say what you will about Michael Bay, but when this came out it looked very damn impressive. However, even with Bay's powerful emphasis on special effects, there are still the expected slips. When the nebula bears down upon New York City, we get a closeup of Midtown Manhattan with the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building prominently featured as asteroids zoom past and towards them. In said shot, a comet bound for the Chrysler Building clearly moves towards a stream, but when the camera cuts to the skyscraper being struck, we see said meteorite also plow through the hotel and finally into Grand Central Terminal below a building, in the opposite direction of where the meteoroid had been going in the previous shot. During the same sequence, we see many shots where the Barclay Hotel is the site of the strong carnage caused by the meteors. The fact that its prominent sign keeps reappearing in the background of the destruction shots makes it all too obvious that all of the ...more
Most review of this movie mentions the CGI being disappointing at best and dreadful at worst, with the main offender being the villain. Superman's face also counts, due to the fact that the mustache Henry had was digitally removed, and it shows, reaching creepy levels of weird.
It doesn't look convincing in the slightest, but it looks cool.
Like this wasn't here?
Some of the absolute worst puppetry in cinema history.